In April 2015, B.K. Stevens debuted the blog series “The First Two Pages,” hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work. The series continued until just after her death in August 2017, and the full archive of those essays can be found at Bonnie’s website. In November 2017, the blog series relocated to my website, and the archive of this second stage of the series can be found here.
This week we continue a series hosting contributors to the new anthology On Fire and Under Water: A Climate Change Crime Fiction Anthology from editor Curtis Ippolito and Rock and a Hard Place. The stories in the collection promise to “peel back the curtain on the ways in which climate change impacts real people in their most desperate hour,” and the contributors include C.W. Blackwell, Mary Thorson, Zakariah Johnson, Puja Guha, Colin Brightwell, Priscilla Paton, Christian Emecheta, Raymond Brash, Edward Barnfield, Kendall Brunson, Michael Downing, C.E. McKenna, Jim Ruland, Richie Narvaez, and Meagan Lucas.
Last week, The First Two Pages hosted an essay by Kendall Brunson on her story “Bad Egg,” and this week, we’re hosting Michael Downing—a native of New Jersey and current resident of Georgia who draws on both places in the essay below to discuss the inspiration for and themes of his story “Burn.”
Michael was the Founder/Creative Director for StoryTellers, a community-based non-profit in Asbury Park, NJ and Georgia that developed and promoted literacy through writing for under-served teenagers and young adults. His latest book is Saints of the Asphalt. You can find more about his work at his website: www.downingfiction.com
And stay tuned ahead for one more essay—from Richie Narvaez!
Please use the arrows and controls at the bottom of the embedded PDF to navigate through the essay. You can also download the essay to read off-line.
Downing-Revised-First-Two-Pages
